Craigslist, RentSentinel, and My First Mid-Life Crisis

Everybody seems to know about this mid-twenties crisis yet failed to mention it to me. I had just turned 25 and became victim to that thing called ‘growing up,’ and here it was rudely interrupting my perfectly planned life. Long story short, I had three weeks to sublease my current apartment and find a new home!

At this moment any normal person would freak out. Did I? Of course I did, but only a little bit! Surviving a crisis like this requires one to remain calm and organized. I had no time to sulk because regardless of how I felt I had to be out of my apartment in 21 days; whether I had a new place to live or not. The only option was to take control of the situation and handle it. Who knew I could turn on survival mode so quickly!

As many of my friends do, I used Craigslist as my apartment search tool. I had successfully found my last two apartments on Craigslist so I had to stick with what worked. I’m an extremely decisive person, so after quickly browsing the site I scheduled appointments with my top apartment choices. I knew immediately which apartments were contenders and which places were instantly out! Actually, I knew immediately which apartment I wanted, so I followed up with the broker several times a day. The poor guy was on vacation and I called, emailed, and texted him; hey, I just wanted to make sure he received my missed calls! Before I knew it, the apartment was mine and the lease was signed. One minor problem, I still had not found anyone to sublease the current apartment I lived in.

As my saving grace, I used RentSentinel to sublease my apartment on Craigslist. RentSentinel rescued me from the looming wrinkles this stressful situation could possibly bring. I realize any person with a computer can go to craigslist.org and post ads in hopes to find a renter. However, posting an ad once a day to the Chicago pages of Craigslist will not keep you sane when you’re trying to avoid paying double rent in the Chicago market.

I’ll try breaking it down for those of you who are not familiar with Craigslist or RentSentinel. Posting ads to Craigslist sans RentSentinel is an exhausting process. Creating an ad through Craigslist would have required digging up pictures, copy/pasting features, and writing a new description about my unit each time. After an ad is posted I would inevitably receive loads of junk mail; this means spending my precious time filtering through emails deciding which are legit or spam. Luckily I didn’t travel down that path, I simply uploaded my content into RentSentinel and with one easy click an ad was generated containing all my content. After the ad was officially posted to Craigslist, RentSentinel sorted through all responses and only delivered legit leads. Without RentSentinel I would have invested too much money in overpriced wrinkle cream or paid a broker to list my apartment and schedule appointments, both options I wanted to avoid.

Not only did RentSentinel save me time but it also tracked my leads. In ten days, I posted 21 ads which averaged almost two ads per day. After the first week RentSentinel showed that Wednesday at 2pm CT was the best time to post. Overall, I received triple the amount of phone calls over email and at least one text message for every three ads posted. The fact that I received more texts than emails speaks volumes to Craigslist’s target market. More than half of the prospects interested communicated with me via text.

Taking care of the people who are contacting you is something I underestimated. I originally pictured having an open house with people streaming through my apartment. Some would stay and share a glass of wine and then in would walk a charming couple who loves the apartment and are excited to sign the lease immediately. Reality Check: It doesn’t quite work that way! People viewing your apartment listing (aka prospects) call at various times of the day, have lists of questions for you, and want to schedule (and sometimes reschedule) apartment showings on their time.

RentSentinel Prospector tracked all of my prospects and added ease to the situation. I didn’t need to jot down notes on a post-it or worry about double booking a viewing. A guest card would be created for each prospect with their basic information (name, phone number, and method of contact). I even included lease terms such as parking preferences, pets, and timeframe.

Having RentSentinel Prospector to organize and log this information was a time and life saver. Once I logged in, a list of tasks and scheduled viewings with each prospect appeared. I knew what I had to accomplish and received daily alerts before showings so I could tidy up. Thanks to the guest card feature I already had contact information for each prospect; this allowed me to follow up after the apartment had been leased to thank everyone for their interest.

I’m still in the process of surviving my mid-twenties crisis but am happy to say I settled into my new digs and subleased my old apartment, both with the help of RentSentinel and Craigslist. I tried searching for a fortune teller on the site but that didn’t work out so well! One thing is for sure, I’m sticking with RentSentinel and the apartment section of Craigslist for all future apartment needs. Until then, if you know of additional contingencies which will be impending on my life you know where to find me. I’ll just need brief summary of the crisis and which tool I can use to help reduce its side effects!